


Skate into my Heart

by bluebirdishere



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Ice Skating, M/M, What if we held hands while skating... and we were both boys, haha jk... unless?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28110588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebirdishere/pseuds/bluebirdishere
Summary: Jon has never been ice skating before. Fortunately for him, he's got a pretty good teacher
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 14
Kudos: 108





	Skate into my Heart

Jonathan Sims knew a lot of things.

He knew he was under-qualified for his job as Head Archivist. He knew that life in the archives was dull at the best of times and unnervingly eerie at the worst. He knew that team bonding activities were, in theory, a good way to foster cooperation and friendship between colleagues.

There were, however, two very important things that Jon did not know: 1) how he’d been roped into joining his assistants for a night of ice skating, especially considering that Jon 2) did not know how to ice skate.

Well, actually, that first part was a lie. He did know why he’d agreed to come, he just didn’t want to admit it.

\--

On Monday, Tim suggested that the entire archival staff go ice skating together in order to de-stress and “get into the holiday spirit.” Initially, Jon declined to go with them; he didn’t see the appeal in risking life and limb flailing about on frozen water, and he had better things to do, anyway (if one counted “working late” as “better”). Tim and Sasha had spent the rest of the week pushing him to change his mind, insisting “it’ll be fun!” and “you should leave the archives once in a while, Jon”, until eventually he snapped and told them that under no circumstances would he be going skating. They were obviously disappointed, of course, but they left it alone, and that was the end of that argument.

Or it was, until Friday morning.

Jon was sitting in his office reading over a report when Martin came in with the morning round of tea. He set it down on Jon’s desk, received the usual clipped “thank you”, and went to leave, only to stop halfway out the door and turn back.

“Er… you’re not coming skating with us tonight, are you?”

“What?” Jon frowned for a moment before processing the question. “Oh. No, I’m not. Why?”

“It’s just…” Martin began hesitantly. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but, um, you seem really stressed a lot of the time? And we all thought that maybe going out and doing something fun would be good for you and, you know, it would be more enjoyable if all four of us were there, so, um… yeah,” he finished weakly.

Jon sighed and looked up from his report. “Look, I appreciate the gesture, but-“

He cut himself off as he noticed the expression Martin was wearing. Seeing Tim and Sasha’s disappointed faces hadn’t felt great, but brushing away the accompanying guilt wasn’t too difficult. Martin, though? Martin looked like a kicked puppy, and Jon felt something clench in his chest.

“…Oh. Right,” Martin replied sadly. He moved to exit the office again. “S-sorry, I’ll just-“

“Wait!”

Martin startled at the sudden outburst, and Jon cursed internally.

“Sorry,” he mumbled before composing himself. “I’ll join you. Tonight.”

Martin stared at him in surprise for a moment before breaking into a shy smile. “Great! I’ll, um, let Tim and Sasha know you’re coming”. With that, he hurried out of the office, leaving Jon to ponder the horrible fate he’d just sealed himself to.

\--

Evening rolled around far quicker than Jon would’ve liked, and he soon found himself sitting on a bench at some outdoor ice rink, struggling to tie his skates. He still couldn’t quite believe _Martin_ , of all people, had been the one to succeed in dragging him out here. If he was being honest, he didn’t have high hopes for the evening; he’d consider himself lucky if he managed to make it through the night without injuring himself. Of course, that was assuming he ever made it onto the ice, which he couldn’t do if he couldn’t get his damned skates tied.

“Hey, Jon.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Martin appear and sit down on the bench next to him. “Is, um, everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine, Martin,” he replied in a sour tone.

“Are you sure? It just, it looked like you were having trouble with your skates, and-“

“I said it’s _fine_.” The words came out harsher than Jon intended, and he felt guilt rise in his chest as he noticed Martin visibly wilt. “Sorry,” he mumbled, ashamed of himself.

Martin looked at him in shock. “Oh! Th-that’s alright!”

Jon was tempted to say something about how it most certainly was _not_ alright, or that Martin didn’t deserve to be so surprised be a simple apology, but he held his tongue. He didn’t need to make even more of an arse of himself. Instead, he turned back to the task of knotting his laces together. After a couple minutes, he finally sighed and removed his gloves, stuffing them in his jacket pocket. The cold immediately bit at his fingers, but without the fabric in the way, it was much easier to join the laces together.

“There,” he muttered as he finished the final knot. With the herculean task complete, he was now ready to enter the rink. Jon stood up, began to walk towards the entrance… only to immediately lost his balance and fall. As he pitched forward, he prepared to hit the cold ground, only to be saved by a hand on his left arm abruptly yanking him back upwards.

“Got you!” said a voice from behind. Craning his neck, Jon turned to see Martin looking at him, eyes wide in concern. Heat rose in his face, and he looked away quickly.

“Are you alright?” Martin asked, his right hand still firmly gripping Jon’s arm.

“I- I’m fine,” Jon mumbled, not making eye contact. “It’s just… this is my first time skating, so I’m not used to walking in these things.”

“Oh. I, I mean, that’s okay!” Martin replied quickly. “I’ve only been a couple times myself. It’s definitely tricky if you’re not used to it. If you’d like, I could, um, show you the ropes?”

Jon was half-tempted to turn down the offer, say that he didn’t need help, but he knew Martin would never buy the obvious lie.

“Very well,” he muttered.

Martin visibly perked up at that. “Great! Alright, let’s get started, then.” He began slowly walking towards the rink, still holding onto Jon’s arm, and Jon reluctantly followed.

Despite it being Friday evening, the place wasn’t all that busy, much to Jon’s relief. He didn’t fancy the idea of a bunch of judgmental strangers watching him fumble everywhere. Besides himself and Martin, there were a dozen or so people skating around. The rink itself was decently large, with lights set up all around the edges for visibility. A light snowfall had started earlier in the evening, creating a scene like something out of a holiday movie.

“Alright.” Martin’s voice snapped Jon out of his thoughts, and he turned to see the taller man step carefully onto the ice. Martin removed his hand from Jon’s arm and held it out for Jon to take.

_Oh_. Right. Holding hands for balance probably _would_ make this endeavor a little easier, wouldn’t it? Jon reached out and took the hand, very pointedly not thinking about how, despite Martin’s hand being significantly larger, their fingers seemed to fit perfectly together. He carefully stepped forward to join his colleague.

Being on the ice was… not completely terrible, surprisingly. Jon definitely didn’t feel _steady_ , and he was reasonably confident he’d wipe out at some point, but… having Martin there to hold on to him somehow made everything seem just a little less daunting. At the very least, his fingers were warming up nicely in the grip of Martin’s own glove-clad hand.

“Okay, doing well so far,” Martin said in an encouraging tone. “Now try walking a little bit.”

Jon did as he was told, taking a couple shaky steps forward. Martin moved with him, keeping a solid grip on Jon’s hand to balance him. They continued like that for a few minutes until Jon’s steps began to grow more confident.

“See, you’re a natural!” Martin smiled down at him, and Jon couldn’t help blushing at the compliment.

“This is actually a good bit easier than I expected it to be,” he confessed. Of course, it helped that he had a very nice teacher (not that he would admit so out loud).

“Does that mean you’re ready for the next step?” Martin asked.

“I… suppose so, yes.” He’d have to actually _skate_ at some point, right?

“Alright. Follow what I do, okay?” Martin began to slowly glide his feet across the ice in a smooth motion. Jon quickly followed suit, and before long they were gliding around the rink at a decent pace, still clinging on to each other.

This was the lightest Jon had felt in months, maybe even years. There were no creepy statements, no feelings of being watched, no Elias breathing down his neck. Just him and Martin, here, on the ice, enjoying the warmth of each other’s company.

“Oh!” The sudden outburst startled Jon, and he turned to look up at Martin. “Sorry, just… it occurred to me that I should teach you how to stop.”

“Ah,” Jon replied. “Yes, that probably would be a useful thing to know.”

“Right, so… what you do is you slow down a bit, and then you take your foot and move it out like this…” As he slowed, he pushed his left foot away from his body at an angle, slowing him further. Jon awkwardly did the same with his right foot, and the pair soon came to a hesitant stop under one of the many lights scattered around the rink.

“Great job!” Martin said, his voice filled with a mix of warmth and pride as he turned to face Jon.

Jon opened his mouth to respond, only to have the words die in his throat.

The glow from above was illuminating Martin’s face, making him look positively ethereal. His warm brown eyes were alight with joy, and snowflakes were falling onto his soft-looking ginger curls. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, and they reddened when he noticed Jon staring at him.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” he asked, mouth twisting into an awkward smile.

The question abruptly pulled Jon out of his stupor. “N-no, sorry, I-“

“Watch out!”

That was all the warning Jon got before he felt something collide hard with his back, pushing him forward into Martin. The force of the impact knocked Martin off balance, causing him to fall over backwards, dragging Jon down with him.

“Shit, sorry about that, guys.” That was Tim speaking, and Jon felt a weight being taken off him as his colleague stood up. “You two alright?”

Jon was about to snark that despite Tim’s best efforts, they were fine, when he noticed three things:

1) He was sprawled directly on top of Martin, 2) Martin was staring at him, wide-eyed, and 3) his mouth was currently very, very close to Martin’s own.

All Jon had to do was lean forward a couple inches, and he would be kissing Martin. He nearly short-circuited at the thought.

“Y-yes, we’re, uh, okay, I think,” Martin squeaked out. “Jon, would you, um-“

Not trusting his ability to speak, Jon simply nodded. He slowly backed away from Martin and carefully began to stand up. He was almost halfway up when his legs wobbled, and he nearly fell over again before being saved by somebody grabbing his arms. He looked up to see Tim on one side of him and Sasha on the other, holding him steady. Sasha looked over his head to speak to Tim.

“I’ve got Jon, if you want to…” She tilted her head at Martin.

“On it!” Tim extended a hand out to Martin, who gratefully took it. The blush on his cheeks was now threatening to overtake his entire face, and as he stood up he kept his eyes locked firmly on the ground.

“Thanks, Tim,” he mumbled quietly.

Tim rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Right, well… sorry about that. Again.”

“It’s fine, just, you know, maybe watch out next time.”

“Yeah. ‘Course.” With that, he turned back to Sasha. “Well, seeing as how we’ve already done enough damage here-“

“’We’”?

“-why don’t we go check out that hot chocolate stand?” he asked, ignoring the interruption.

Sasha rolled her eyes at him, but smiled nonetheless. She looked down at Jon.

“Are you gonna be alright if I let go of you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he muttered. “Go enjoy your drinks.”

She raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t push, choosing instead to remove her hand from his arm and bid a quick farewell before skating off with Tim, leaving Jon and Martin alone on the ice again.

“So, um,” Martin began, not meeting Jon’s eyes. “That happened.”

Jon didn’t respond. There were a million thoughts racing through his head in that moment, most of them related to how close he and Martin had been only a few minutes ago. So close, and yet not quite close enough.

“Jon?” Martin asked him. “Are you alright?”

Right, he should probably say something, shouldn’t he? He opened his mouth to reply that he was fine.

“May I kiss you?”

… _Shit_.

Martin’s eyes widened in shock, and Jon immediately panicked.

“I-I’m sorry, that was, that was terribly inappropriate, I didn’t mean to-“

“Yes.”

The word cut through Jon’s rapidly spiking anxiety. He looked up at Martin, not daring to believe his ears.

“…What?”

“Yes,” Martin repeated, face bright red. “You can k-kiss me, if you’d like.”

“Oh. Well, that’s- that’s good, then.”

Jon moved so that he was standing directly in front of Martin, and brought his arms up to wrap around the back of the taller man’s neck. As he tilted his head up, Martin leaned down to try and meet him halfway, and their mouths gently met. Martin’s lips were slightly chapped, and the angle was somewhat awkward, but Jon couldn’t care less. The kiss was perfect, because it was _theirs_. His mouth was warm against Martin’s, and they moved together comfortably, relishing in each other’s closeness.

After a few minutes, Jon’s neck began to ache. The height difference between the two of them was enough that craning up became uncomfortable quickly, and he couldn’t stand tiptoe because of the ice. He reluctantly broke off the kiss and looked back up at Martin.

“This is probably going to be an HR nightmare,” he murmured.

Martin snorted. “Probably, but we can worry about that on Monday. Right now, let’s just enjoy each other’s company, yeah?”

That was, perhaps, the best idea Jon had ever heard.


End file.
